War of the Worlds

In 2005 Spielberg decided to reteam with Tom Cruise for another sci-fi movie, a remake of the H.G. Wells story, War of the Worlds. The original film from the 1950’s became a minor classic, and generally regarded as better than some of the B-movie sci-fi schlock that came out during the same era. Spielberg’s film would take a different approach, one that was more personal by following a single family and their struggle to survive during the alien attack.
Cruise once again plays a compelling lead, an absentee divorced father forced to get his kids to safety. Dakota Fanning, of the most popular child actresses in the early 2000’s, plays his daughter and brings emotional honesty and innocence to the film. It’s impressive how well she can convey being terrified in this film, which goes along way to sell the scary scenes. We even get everyone’s favorite film narrator, Morgan Freeman, to bookend the film.

The set pieces and special effects are equally impressive. This film is more sci-fi horror than any of Spielberg’s previous works in the genre, and everything from the large ships, probes, or aliens themselves bring the creepiness to life. Stylistically it’s probably the closest Spielberg got to something similar to his Jurassic Park films, but it also works as an interesting dichotomy of his previous sci-fi films, particularly Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with a focus on hostile aliens.

The sound design is a huge factor in this film. I still recall seeing it in theaters and how much those “fog-horn” alien sounds would literally shake the walls. I think Spielberg really wanted the sound effects to be a major component for this film, so much so that the score by Williams usually gets forced into the background for many scenes. It’s the right call for the film, but it results in a Spielberg film that is less influenced by the music than normal.

The score by Williams is interesting, and recalls a lot of his other music from the same period. Some mystery elements similar to A.I., some dense dramatic moments not unlike Revenge of the Sith, and some frantic action cues the bear resemblance to his work on The Lost World and Minority Report. There are even a few suspenseful cues that resemble the music of Herrmann. Although these ideas are intriguing, Williams never really gets a chance to develop a strong central thematic identity for the score.

As a result, it remains my least favorite Williams score for a Spielberg film. It’s certainly adequate, and works better in film than on album, but hey, some score had to be last on my list. At least the film is a real winner. It’s an intense and powerful action/horror hybrid that is very exciting, with the only weakness being a somewhat forced happy ending (also, that’s my same review for Godzilla Minus-1 too). I’d say it’s probably a top-10 alien invasion film and a unique but no less compelling entry into Spielberg’s filmography.

Film: ****
Score: ***

P.S. Coincidently there’s a new “War of the Worlds” movie on Prime. Last I checked, it had a 0% Rotten Tomatoes rating. I have no plans to watch or review it.